


heroes and ghosts

by Nayla



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: I JUST LOVE THEM SO MUCH IT HURTS MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE, M/M, so i wrote this instead of studying because pffff who needs to study when you can cry over this otp, the movie made me feel all these feelings I didn't want to feel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-13
Updated: 2014-04-13
Packaged: 2018-01-19 04:27:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1455334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nayla/pseuds/Nayla
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It doesn’t take you long to reach the conclusion he’s so desperately running away from.</p><p>Bucky Barnes’s dead, he died a hero. You’re just his ghost.</p>
            </blockquote>





	heroes and ghosts

**Author's Note:**

> oh god I'm very nervous aishpasjopajsioajsopaksa I usually ask my friends to read my stuff before I post them, but apparently no one watched the winter soldier yet and I couldn't spoil them ( and the ones who did aren't online). So, this is me being brave (and possibly stupid) and posting this without having anyone tell me if I should omg I'LL JUST LEAVE IT HERE AND GO CRY IN A CORNER ALL BY MYSELF BECAUSE MY FRIENDS HAVEN'T WATCHED IT YET AND I DON'T UNDERSTAND WHAT THEY'RE DOING WITH THEIR LIVES!!!!

“I don’t remember you.” You tell him because he’s looking at you and there’s just so much hope, there’s hope falling from his eyes and down his face disguised as tears and you can’t take it. Back in the battle, every one of your shots found its target and you watched him bleed. He bled faith (on SHIELD, on the people he worked for and on his chances of ever stopping Hydra) and hope and he may have run out of faith by now, but there’s still so much hope on him.

He bleeds and he cries and yet, somehow, the hope remains. He’s got hope for both of you because you’ve got none, but the thing is, he doesn’t get it: You don’t need it. You don’t need anyone (you dont need him) and you’re not about to start now just because he’s looking at you like you’re home.

Captain America is your target, he’s your unfinished mission and now’s the closer you get to end it. It doesn’t take any bullets or knives or bombs to destroy america’s greatest hero, it just takes these four words and you could keep going, you should keep going untill there’s nothing left, untill he crumples, but you don’t. You are to fight Captain America, but this is Steve Rogers, standing in front of you, unarmed, and for the first time in a long time, you hesitate.

Steve Rogers is a name known all around the world, it’s revered by many and feared by many more and you search deep within yourself because you have this feeling that his name used to mean something to you, but you can’t find out what.

(“You are my friend.” He had said it then, and it’s the first thing he says to you now, but that’s just another word you never cared to find its meaning)

Steve Rogers is just a name, it’s the name next to Bucky Barnes’s in the Smithsonian.

You visited it everyday, for two weeks, you read about the man who shares your face, you read about his friendship with Steve, you read about Hydra, about having Captain America as an ally, about the attack on the train and each time you stop on the word “hero.” None of this hits home, none of this sounds true, nor right. It’s just another story. (it’s a sad story)

There’s a video playing and you watched it over and over again. You watched Bucky Barnes and Steve Rogers laugh and joke and bump each other’s shoulders like the best friends they are supposed to be. That man has your face but he’s a stranger, Steve’s also a stranger and so is this feeling that is starting to grow too big for your chest.

After that, Steve Rogers becomes your new mission because you’re a soldier and you need a mission. You study him, reading every file and book about him untill you learn all the importante dates and places by heart. You follow him, bug his apartment, watch him train and talk to the people who fought by his side. You’re aware that there’s a vault in his bedroom and it contains files about Bucky Barnes and you know he opens it every night to read them and reread them and try to figure out what he missed in this previous readings. He talks to the man called Sam about Bucky and the Winter Soldier and he says it like he’s talking about the same person.

It doesn’t take you long to reach the conclusion he’s so desperately running away from.

Bucky Barnes’s dead, he died a hero. You’re just his ghost.

You’re the ghost and yet Steve Rogers’s the one who keeps haunting you. You can’t help thinking about him even though you remember nothing of your past. You never really wanted to remember before; you’d go and you’d let them in your head, you’d let them wipe everything they wanted because you didn’t want to remember your targets and their families, you didn’t want to remember why is it so easy for you to kill them or if there’s any part of you that actually enjoys how easy it is. You never wanted to know anything, but now you do; you want to remember the fights on Brooklyn alleys or how it felt to hear his voice and look at his bright eyes after he rescued you, you want to know what you’ve said to make him smile that big and warm smile on that video that keeps playing in the Smithsonian. You want to understand why Steve thinks you’re worth saving.

(“I’m with you untill the end of the line” Steve had said and you want to test it, you want to know, at least, where the end of the line is. )

And, most of all, you want to remember being Bucky Barnes to know if it makes up for being the Winter Soldier.

But there’s nothing. It doesn’t matter how hard you try, you don’t remember what being James “Bucky” Barnes is like, you don’t know how he talked or how he acted or even if he felt the same things you’re feeling right now. There was nothing on the Smithsonian about this and the dictionary definition of friend/friendship doesn’t cover it, either.

“I don’t remember you.” You tell him again and again and again untill he understands. Bucky Barnes died seventy years ago and you could never be him because he’s a hero, he smiles and laughs and does all these things you don’t. You’re not Bucky, you’re the Winter Soldier because it’s better than being nothing at all, than being a ghost. You’ll make him bleed and cry and lose all hope. You’ll do what you always does, you’ll show him no mercy and you won’t feel a thing because you. Are. Not. Bucky.

(and you say it again and again and again untill you understand)

 “I remember you.” He says because he doesn’t get it. “I could never forget you, Buck.” You want to yell at him about how wrong he is, but you don’t because his lips are suddenly on yours and it makes you remember how it feels to die, all over again.


End file.
